Mircea Lucescu (; 29 July 1945 – 7 April 2026) was a Romanian professional football player and manager.
Lucescu was one of the most successful footballers of the Romanian league championship, having won all seven of his titles with Dinamo București between 1964 and 1990. He also had spells at Știința București and Corvinul Hunedoara, and made 64 appearances for the Romania national team, which he captained at the 1970 FIFA World Cup.
Lucescu started his managerial career in 1979, while still playing for Corvinul Hunedoara. In the next five decades, he went on coach various sides in Romania, Italy, Turkey, Ukraine, and Russia. He was widely regarded for his twelve-year stint in charge of Shakhtar Donetsk, where he became the most successful coach in the club's history by winning eight Ukrainian Premier League titles, six Ukrainian Cups, seven Ukrainian Super Cups, and the 2008–09 UEFA Cup. He also won trophies in Ukraine with Shakhtar's rival Dynamo Kyiv, as well as Romanian titles with Dinamo București and Rapid București, and Turkish Süper Lig titles with Galatasaray and Beşiktaş. In 2013, he was awarded the Manager of the Decade award in Romania, and in 2015 became the fifth person to coach in 100 UEFA Champions League matches, joining Alex Ferguson, Carlo Ancelotti, Arsène Wenger, and José Mourinho. He also ranks third in football history with 38 official trophies.
Lucescu died in 2026, aged 80, shortly after completing his second stint with the Romania national team.
Club career
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Lucescu was born on 29 July 1945 in Bucharest, Romania, and was part of a family of five children. He began playing junior-level football in 1961 at Școala Sportivă 2 București. Lucescu won the championship in his first two seasons with Dinamo, playing a total of three Divizia A games. In the following three editions of the Cupa României, the club would reach the final in each of them, Lucescu scoring a brace in the 1971 final, but they were all lost to rivals Steaua București. Lucescu would also win another four league titles. In the first one he worked with coaches Nicolae Dumitru and Ionescu who gave him 23 appearances in which he scored three goals.
During these years he also played 15 games in which he scored three goals in European competitions (including three appearances in the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup). For the way he played in 1971, Lucescu was placed fourth in the ranking for the Romanian Footballer of the Year award, and in 1974, he was second.
In July 1977, Lucescu joined Corvinul Hunedoara, where he became the team's coach in January 1979, while still an active player. The team was relegated to Divizia B at the end of the season, but Lucescu remained with the club, helping it gain promotion back to the first division after just one year. Thus, Lucescu registered himself as a player and on 16 May 1990, he entered the field in the 76th minute to replace Ionel Fulga in a 1–1 draw against Sportul Studențesc București.
Lucescu also received offers to play abroad. During the 1970s, he was linked with moves to foreign clubs but was prevented by the Romanian communist regime. In February 1970, while the national team toured Brazil for the Torneio Internacional do Rio de Janeiro, the president of Fluminense sent an official request to the Romanian authorities in May 1970 to sign Lucescu on loan. The offer was rejected, as the regime considered athletes national assets and political symbols, rarely allowing them to move abroad; footballers were seen as ambassadors of socialist success, expected to glorify Romania internationally while remaining under state control and prohibited from representing foreign clubs abroad. Lucescu was later linked with Turkish side Fenerbahçe on two occasions. In July 1971, he appeared in an All Stars testimonial match honoring Fenerbahçe legend Ogün Altıparmak, marking the club's initial interest in signing him. In August 1976, he wore a Fenerbahçe jersey in a friendly against Dnipropetrovsk; a formal transfer was reportedly agreed, but the authorities blocked the move.
International career
thumb|200px|right|Lucescu in a duel with [[Keith Newton (footballer)|Keith Newton during Romania's 0–0 friendly against England on 6 November 1968]]
Lucescu made a total of 64 appearances for Romania, serving as captain in 23 of them and scoring nine goals. He made his debut under coach Ilie Oană on 2 November 1966, in a 4–2 victory against Switzerland during the Euro 1968 qualifiers. In those qualifiers, he made a total of six appearances and scored two goals across the two victories against Cyprus. He was used by coach Angelo Niculescu as captain in all three matches in the final tournament which were a win against Czechoslovakia and losses to defending champions England and eventual winners Brazil, as his side failed to progress from their group. After that match, he exchanged shirts with Pelé.
Managerial career
Corvinul Hunedoara
Lucescu learned many things about coaching from Viorel Mateianu, being very impressed by his working methods. He would go to study his training sessions at FC Baia Mare, sometimes asking Mateianu to extend them so he could see more of his methods. During his time at Corvinul, Lucescu demonstrated his ability to discover and promote young players such as Ioan Andone, Mircea Rednic, Michael Klein, Dorin Mateuț and Romulus Gabor.
Romania
Lucescu's debut as Romania's head coach took place on 11 November 1981 in a 0–0 draw against Switzerland in the 1982 World Cup qualifiers. He qualified the team to Euro 1984 by winning a qualification group composed of Czechoslovakia, Sweden, Cyprus and 1982 World Cup winner, Italy, earning a 0–0 away draw and a 1–0 home victory against the latter. In the final tournament, which was composed of eight teams, Romania earned a point after a 1–1 draw against Spain, but lost the other two games to West Germany and Portugal, thus failing to progress from their group. Lucescu left after a 4–0 victory against Austria in the Euro 1988 qualifiers that took place on 10 September 1986.
Dinamo București
thumb|240px|right|Lucescu (left) instructing [[Ioan Sabău during a Dinamo training session]]
Lucescu was named coach at Dinamo București in November 1985, while still working for Romania's national team. Over the course of almost five years, Lucescu created a team by promoting players from the club's youth center, including Bogdan Stelea, Ionuț Lupescu and Florin Răducioiu, transferred young players like Dănuț Lupu and Ioan Sabău, mixing them with players he coached at Corvinul such as Ioan Andone, Mircea Rednic, Michael Klein and Dorin Mateuț. In the following season they won the Divizia A title and the Cupa României after another win over Steaua in the final.
While coaching Dinamo, on 27 March 1989, Lucescu was one of the three coaches alongside Artur Jorge and Nils Liedholm for the Rest of the World XI in the farewell match of Brazilian footballer Zico at Stadio Friuli in Udine. The Rest of the World XI won 2–1 against the Brazil national team.
Pisa
After the 1989 Romanian Revolution, Lucescu moved to Italy in the summer of 1990 to take charge of the newly promoted Serie A club Pisa. The 1990–91 season marked Pisa's return to Serie A, widely regarded at the time as the strongest league in the world. Lucescu's task was clear but extremely difficult to keep the newly promoted side in Serie A. The club struggled throughout the season due to limited squad depth and a lack of top-tier Serie A quality, relying mainly on promotion-level professionals and several international players, including a young Diego Simeone and José Chamot, both in their first experience in European football, and Danish international Henrik Larsen. After a good start, in round six they suffered a 6–3 defeat to Inter Milan, which marked the beginning of problems between Lucescu and the club's president, Romeo Anconetani. Despite these players, the team finished near the bottom of the table and were relegated back to Serie B after one season.
At Pisa, Lucescu met Adriano Bacconi, a fitness trainer whom he tasked with recording statistical data on players during matches. This method, which Lucescu had previously used at Corvinul, allowed him to gather detailed performance data on players. The two later worked together at Brescia, where in 1994, they each invested $35,000 to create FARM (Football Athletic Results Manager), one of the earliest software data monitoring systems in football. Following their elevation to the top flight, Brescia recorded notable victories against several top clubs, including an away win over AS Roma and home wins against Juventus, Napoli, Sampdoria and Lazio. However, at the end of the 1992–93 season, the club were relegated after losing a relegation play-off against Udinese. During this period, the club earned the nickname "Brescia Rumena", as Lucescu brought several Romanian players to the squad, including Gheorghe Hagi, Florin Răducioiu, Dorin Mateuț, Ioan Sabău and Dănuț Lupu, in a similar fashion to AC Milan's Dutch core (Marco van Basten, Ruud Gullit, Frank Rijkaard) and Inter Milan's German contingent (Lothar Matthäus, Andreas Brehme, Jürgen Klinsmann). The club secured promotion again the following season and also won the 1993–94 Anglo-Italian Cup at Wembley Stadium in London. He had under his command players such as Georges Grün, Ioan Sabău, Adolfo Valencia and Igor Simutenkov. Their first performance was securing the 1997–98 Cupa României after a 1–0 win over Universitatea Craiova in the final. Then after a short spell at Inter Milan, he came back to Rapid, winning the 1998–99 Divizia A, which was the first championship title won by the club after 32 years.
Inter Milan
In December 1998, Lucescu was named head coach at Inter Milan, working with players such as Ronaldo, Roberto Baggio, Youri Djorkaeff, Andrea Pirlo, Javier Zanetti and Ivan Zamorano. They managed to reach the quarter-finals of the 1998–99 Champions League, being eliminated 3–1 on aggregate by Alex Ferguson's Manchester United, who eventually won the competition. He left the club in March 1999, one of the reasons being a conflict with Ronaldo.
Galatasaray
In June 2000, he replaced Fatih Terim at Turkish club Galatasaray, with whom, alongside Romanian players Gheorghe Hagi and Gheorghe Popescu, he won the 2000 UEFA Super Cup, after a 2–1 win against Real Madrid. Under Lucescu's leadership, Galatasaray reached the quarter-finals of the 2000–01 Champions League season, where after a 3–2 victory in the first leg against Real Madrid, they lost the second leg 3–0. The following year, Galatasaray qualified to the second group phase of the Champions League and won the Turkish League title. He managed to win the Turkish title, having only one loss and collecting 85 points – a record points tally in a single Süper Lig season.
In the following season, the team could not progress from a difficult Champions League group, but was able to get a ticket to the 2003–04 UEFA Cup by finishing third in its group – only to be knocked out by Valencia in the third round, who eventually won the competition. On 25 January 2004, during a home game against Samsunspor, referee Cem Papila showed five red cards to Beşiktaş players. After this match, the team's performance declined drastically, Lucescu blamed the Turkish Football Federation for one-sided decisions by the referees.
Shakhtar Donetsk
thumb|right|240px|Lucescu coaching [[FC Shakhtar Donetsk|Shakhtar Donetsk in a Ukrainian Premier League match against Arsenal Kyiv, October 2013.]]
In May 2004, Lucescu joined Ukrainian side Shakhtar Donetsk and led their rise to prominence in Ukraine the following years. His first trophy with the club came in the 2003–04 Ukrainian Cup, defeating Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk 2–0 in the final on 30 May. In his first full season with the club, he secured the 2004–05 Premier League title.
The following season, he secured both the Premier League and the Super Cup. He failed to win any trophies the following season, however, though he made up for it in the 2007–08 season, winning the Premier League title and the Ukrainian Cup. His only domestic success in the 2008–09 season came in the Super Cup, although he was able to guide Shakhtar to their first ever European trophy, winning the last UEFA Cup before it was renamed the UEFA Europa League. He won the final against Werder Bremen 2–1 after extra time.
The 2009–10 season saw Shakhtar regain the Premier League title. The 2010–11 season was very successful for Lucescu. He guided Shakhtar to a domestic treble, winning the Premier League, the Ukrainian Cup and the Super Cup. They also had their most successful Champions League campaign, reaching the quarter-final stage before being defeated by eventual winners Barcelona.
The following season saw Shakhtar retain their Premier League and Ukrainian Cup titles. This gave Lucescu his sixth Premier League and fourth Ukrainian Cup with the club. Shakhtar had a disappointing Champions League campaign, finishing in fourth place in their group. His son, Răzvan Lucescu, is a former goalkeeper who at several points managed Rapid București, a team his father had also previously managed. Coincidentally, Shakhtar and Rapid met in the group stage of the UEFA Cup, the duel was disputed in only one leg at Donetsk in November 2005 ending with 1–0 win for Rapid.
thumb|Lucescu presenting [[Fernando (footballer, born 1992)|Fernando in 2013, one of a large number of Brazilians to sign for Shakhtar during his spell.]]
On 22 May 2009, Lucescu received the National Order "Cross of Romania" in the rank of Knight from Romanian president Traian Băsescu, as a recognition of his coaching career, highlighted by winning the 2009 UEFA Cup in Istanbul. On 29 May 2009, he was also awarded the title of Honorary citizen of Donetsk by the city council, in recognition of his contribution to the development and promotion of Ukrainian football and for raising the profile of Donetsk and Ukraine internationally.
In December 2009, he turned down an offer to coach the Ukraine national team, his reason being to avoid another potential clash with his son, Răzvan, who then managed the Romania national team and could qualify for UEFA Euro 2012, which Ukraine was to host.